While President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is playing his political game of delaying an agreement to keep U.S. forces in a supportive security role in his country, our troops stationed there continue to be victims of suicide bombers and car bomb attacks. The cost of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq and in Afghanistan over the years has amounted to billions of dollars, while wounded veterans from these regions have had to wait for medical care, many of them dying before receiving the needed care.

The war against Al Qaeda in the region has been a huge waste of money, and of American lives. The neglect of wounded veterans by the military health services is a national scandal. We have the planes and the naval war vessels that are capable of keeping that region of mayhem and murder isolated, so why not keep our troops at a safe distance as they continue their carnage? Without Americans to kill and the supply of U.S. money cut off, they just might make peace with each other.